The Crime of Monsieur Lange is a 1936 French drama film directed by Jean Renoir about a publishing cooperative. Imbued with the spirit of the communist/socialist Popular Front, which would score a major political victory in 1936, the film is an idyllic picture of a socialist France and is both a social commentary and a romance. It was shot at the Billancourt Studios in Paris. The film's sets were designed by the art director Robert Gys. It was distributed by the French subsidiary of Warner Brothers.

Jean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s. His films La Grande Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939) are often cited by critics as among the greatest films ever made. He was ranked by the BFI's Sight & Sound poll of critics in 2002 as the fourth greatest director of all time. Among numerous honours accrued during his lifetime, he received a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 1975 for his contribution to the motion picture industry. Renoir was the son of the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and the uncle of the cinematographer Claude Renoir. He was one of the first filmmakers to be known as an auteur.